Harnessing the Musician Advantage: Short-Term Musical Training Affects Non-Native Cue Weighting of Linguistic Pitch

Autor/inn/en	Wiener, Seth; Bradley, Evan D.
Titel	Harnessing the Musician Advantage: Short-Term Musical Training Affects Non-Native Cue Weighting of Linguistic Pitch
Quelle	In: Language Teaching Research, 27 (2023) 4, S.1016-1031 (16 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Wiener, Seth)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1362-1688
DOI	10.1177/1362168820971791
Schlagwörter	Intonation; Mandarin Chinese; Tone Languages; English; Native Language; Second Language Learning; Second Language Instruction; Phonology; Auditory Stimuli; Accuracy; Musicians; Language Aptitude; Speech Communication; Transfer of Training; Individual Differences; Cues; Music Education; Acoustics; Teaching Methods; Undergraduate Students; Language Tests + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Tonsprache; English language; Englisch; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Fremdsprachenunterricht; Fonologie; Auditive Stimulation; Musiker; Sprachbegabung; Spracheignung; Training; Transfer; Ausbildung; Individueller Unterschied; Stichwort; Musikerziehung; Akustik; Teaching method; Lehrmethode; Unterrichtsmethode; Language test; Sprachtest
Abstract	Lexical tone languages like Mandarin Chinese require listeners to discriminate among different pitch patterns. A syllable spoken with a rising pitch (e.g. "b[i-acute]" 'nose') carries a different meaning than the same syllable spoken with a falling pitch (e.g. "b[i with grave]" 'arm'). For native speakers (L1) of a non-tonal language, accurate perception of tones in a second language (L2) is notoriously difficult. Musicians, however, have typically shown an aptitude for lexical tone learning due to the unique perceptual demands of music. This study tested whether musical effects can be exploited to improve linguistic abilities in the general population. A pre-test, 8-week training, post-test design was used to measure L1 English participants' sensitivity to tone. Individual Differences Scaling was used to measure participants' weighting of pitch height and movement cues. Participants took part in classroom Mandarin learning only (+L2), musical ear training only (+Music), or classroom learning combined with musical training (+L2+Music). An L1 Mandarin group served as a baseline. At pre-test, mean sensitivity to tone and multidimensional scaling results were similar across all three L1 English groups. After training, all three L1 English groups improved in mean sensitivity, though only the +L2+Music group did so at a significant rate. Multidimensional scaling revealed that all groups increased their weighting of the more informative pitch movement cue at roughly equal rates. Short-term musical training thus affected change in cue weighting of linguistic pitch in a manner comparable to that occurring after a semester of L2 classroom learning. When combined with classroom learning, short-term musical training resulted in even greater sensitivity to pitch movement cues. These results contribute to models of music-language interaction and suggest that focused application of non-linguistic acoustic training can improve phonetic perception in ways that are relevant to language learning. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01